Here In The Morning
by JMS6
Summary: Monotonous is the word that John Watson would use to describe his last three years, but the apparition certainly sounded like his old best friend.


Here In The Morning

* * *

Year three of John's solitude was the same as the previous two: boring, lonely and repetitive. Sadly, the days were worse than they had been before. Earlier, Greg would come for beer every day or two and Mrs Hudson would always be around for a little chat. Now the days dragged, because he didn't want to go outside; was there a point? He had no job, and was relying on pay that must have been coming from Mycroft, the bastard. He was the reason why Sherlock was-  
John cut off his train of thought.  
Sometimes, he would turn around and think he saw something (or someone), but there was never anything. It was always the same. Everything stayed the same within his little flat, a cheap, tatty, two room affair on the suburbs of south London. Outside, of course, things always changed, but they were never of interest to John. His bubble was perpetually stagnant.

John looked out of his window to see a couple walking past. Sarah, of course, and every other woman he had ever known, was gone. Molly hadn't spoken to him for over a year now, but then she had never known him anyway. They had only met briefly, and through him. As John looked away from the window, he thought he saw a man in a dark coat coming towards his house and started, but when he looked, he saw that it was someone else. Dark coat, dark hair, pale, tall, but... Not him. Never him.

John turned and wondered whether he was hallucinating, because surely that couldn't be his door opened. He had closed it ages ago, and he hadn't opened it since. A chink of light fell on the dusty floor. John sighed and shut it, returning to the window. Inside was sepia, but outside was black and white. There were no colours except for the red of a splintered skull on a dull, wet pavement.

Another civilian walked past and John stood abruptly. He marched stiffly to his room and swallowed some sleeping pills, because god knew he needed them, even in the middle of the day. Nightmares were generally easier to forget and less realistic than memories.

Within minutes, John was sprawled on his sofa, head flung back and legs splayed, with a familiar, long, dark coat to cover him. It was the closest to his friend he had, and sometimes John imagined that he could still smell Sherlock's clean, clinical scent and fresh, luxurious shampoo. He never could, though. Not really.

{oOo}

John woke an immeasurable period of time later to the solid click of a latch. Still lost to the blur of wakening, he groaned and blinked his eyes open wearily. The clock on his wall said it was ten in the evening, and he looked around, remembering the clicking sound.

Was it part of my dream?

It took a good moment for John to register the shadowed figure in his doorway. Dark coat, dark hair, paler than ever, tall and exhausted, but not a random stranger. It wasn't Greg or Mycroft, why ever they might be there. John stared blankly.

"Sherlock...?" he murmured. He almost burst into hysterical laughter but managed to contain himself, although why should he? Who did he have to impress? A hallucination? Surely his brain could do better than that.

Sherlock stood and John began to notice how different he looked. He looked ill and drawn, and for once he had bags under his eyes. His tall frame seemed thinner than ever, and the coat he wore seemed looser than usual. The ghost looked straight back at John for a moment before opening his pale lips to speak croakily.

"John, I'm here." The apparition certainly sounded like his old best friend. The baritone rang across the room, sounding exactly the same, if a little hoarse, a little weary, a little less imperious and a lot less like one of John's memories.

John smiled at the sound, but his face soon fell.

"It's you?" he asked, feeling insane. Talking to a ghost... But then he seemed real. "But you were... You died." John said firmly. Sherlock almost smiled and removed his leather gloves, the ones John had forgotten about with the cut out holes by the knuckles.

"John..." Sherlock replied. "You know me better than that." John shook his head.

"But you were. You..." he grimaced. "Jumped." Sherlock's expression became almost exasperated, apparently endeared by what John had said.

"Suicide is not in my repertoire," he replied, taking a step into the room, causing John to start. He had utterly forgotten what Sherlock was like, how he moved, how he... How his chest rose with every living breath he took... How his hands raised of their own accord entirely.

"I..." John said weakly, the room before him swimming. His own voice, he noticed, was as disused as Sherlock's own. "You..." Sherlock took another step and continued his approach until he was next to John, and then kneeled next to him. Now John knew he was really there. How could he possibly have dreamed up Sherlock's glasz eyes? How could he have imagined the way each strand of his hair fell in their gentle curls? Above all, how could he possibly have invented the look on Sherlock's face?

He was about to speak, utter some idiotic denial of what was obviously happening, but Sherlock interrupted him before he managed to as he always used to.

"You don't need to think about it now," he said. "Sleep, and I'll be here in the morning." John nodded wearily, noticing the pain in his neck from where he had slept, cramped onto the sofa. Sherlock noticed and held out a hand, which John took cautiously, as though it might break. The last time he had held this hand... Sherlock had been dead and silent.

Sherlock guided him to his bedroom, where John lay in his expansive bed, fully clothed, dazed and bewildered. His mind was working at full speed, trying to understand, but he felt blurred, as though he had been scattered by Sherlock's appearance.

"Sherlock, what happened?" he asked wearily. Sherlock sat on the other side of his bed and sighed slowly. It sounded like the breath of someone whose lungs had been constricted for too long.

"Don't worry," he replied infuriatingly. John was too tired to argue. "I'll be here in the morning," he repeated, lying beside John slowly.

"But..." John's mind finally gave into exhaustion and he turned to his side to make sure Sherlock was still there. Sherlock was looking back, his own eyes somehow sliding shut already.

Asleep, Sherlock's face relaxed entirely and John noticed the faded bruises on his cheeks and the matted patch at the side of his hair. Slowly, John's eyelids flickered and he, too, slept.

* * *

**A/N – **I wrote this at 1:40 this morning, so do NOT judge me. It's just that I haven't had a chance to write a single chapter recently and I was rambling to my friend over email, sending them little fics. I found this one this morning and was like, 'Hey, I should post something! Hey, what about this? Cool yup doin' it das nice.' I apologise for all the Tumblr that I am showing, but... Tumblr. I... just... Tumblr. I typed this on my iPod so it took a while longer than typing on my computer, and I was listening to Barber: Adagio for Strings, Op. 11, at the time. The really dramatic bit in the middle managed to match with the bit where we see Sherlock return, so... try it, because it's cool and stuff. Yeah. I'm articulate today.

jms x


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